Month: May 2008

It is our pleasure to publicize this appeal from the Daughters of the American Revolution. They need your help to preserve their landmark pre-revolutionary house on South Street. WE NEED YOUR HELP! THE DAR HOUSE built in 1753 is a standing monument in the South Street Neighborhood. It is seen every day by hundreds of […]

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Mayor Clare Higgins has just released a new email update to the public, and we are reproducing it here for your general information. We call your special attention to the upcoming presentation from Phil Bess, Professor and Graduate Program Director of the Architecture Program, University of Notre Dame. It will take place on June 2 […]

At the February 7 meeting of Northampton’s planning board, one member characterized as “carbuncles” condo developments that integrate poorly with their surrounding neighborhoods. Let’s take a look at the characteristics of some attractive streets with detached houses in the North Street neighborhood, and then contrast them with three carbuncle candidates–two built and one proposed. Trees […]

At 8:30am today, members of the public gathered in Civil War dress to commemorate our war dead at Bridge Street Cemetery. After a brief eulogy, guns and cannon fired, and Taps was played. We offer this two-minute Google video in appreciation, with pictures following. See also: Northampton Redoubt: Memorial Day tributes TapsBugler.com: History of TapsAs […]

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Smart Growth advocates are concerned about the energy consumed by America’s many cars and the emissions they produce. With gas nearing $4 a gallon, it’s hard not to share these concerns. However, the solutions commonly proposed–densification to support rail and bus travel–often don’t work well in practice. Many homebuyers resist being packed into dense neighborhoods […]

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Mike Kirby, former city councilor, has just published another great article on Kirby on the Loose. He fills in the larger story behind the recent fire at 11 Bridge Street, and we are reprinting it here with his kind permission: The Fire at Augie’s When all is said and done, we were very lucky with […]

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Northwest 23rd Avenue in Portland, Oregon sounds a bit like Main Street in Northampton. It is “lined with classy shops and restaurants” that attract visitors from a wide area. To be sure, these are both pleasant destinations. We are glad to have them around. However, they are not sufficient for meeting all the core needs […]

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AP reports today: Sales of existing homes fall 1 percent in April, eighth drop in past 9 months The National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales dropped by 1 percent to 4.89 million units, matching the all-time low set in January. These records go back to 1999. The median price for an existing […]

Members of Northampton’s Best Practices Committee have just made available this transcription of some of the citizen comments from their public forum of May 13. We added a small amount of formatting to improve readability. Click for video of the public forum and see pictures of the comments as they were written. The committee has […]

On May 20, members of Northampton’s Best Practices Committee held a morning workshop to evaluate input from their May 13 public forum. One of the exercises at the forum invited citizens to write comments about major city issues on large sheets of paper (see pictures below). Much of the workshop was devoted to determining how […]